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Monday, August 3, 2015

Can we first address how awesome am I not to give into the temptation to make a corny pun about movie props in the title? Okay, glad we got that out of the way.

Recently, I was asked by Invaluable.com—an auction marketplace website featuring antiques, collectibles, and everything in between—if the rules were lifted and I could have any movie props from any movie, what would they be?

First of all, I shall institute some parameters (although I will break them later on, because that's how I roll). These props can't be super famous, like the ruby slippers above. I like to think out of the box, that being said, I'm probably not a hipster so this plan will crumble very soon. I'd just like to point out that my intentions were always good. This means we won't be seeing anything from "Star Wars", or "Lord of the Rings", or "Harry Potter", or any other franchise of extreme fame.

The mask from "Brazil"

The Orwellian fantasy of "Brazil" seems hardly complete without its last scenes. While everything in this movie screams of collectibility (not a word, but one that I think should be), the very last scene in which a baby mask become the scariest thing you can imagine, is the movie's most successful. The greatest of all Gilliam's movies, with a set design that dwarfs all contemporary pieces, perhaps we'd like to own the entire set...but we'll settle for the baby mask instead.

The top from "Inception"

Okay, so I broke my own rules already. This one is obvious, since "Inception" is always in my tops movies. The spinning top, the final frames, they don't really capture the movie's aching poetry and its heist like speed, the adrenaline, nor the complexity of the movie; but with only a top spinning round and round for perhaps eternity, there seems no better prop to condense this movie to a single object.

The coffee mug from "Usual Suspects"

If you haven't seen this movie, you need to and the mug is an obvious pick. There's something incredibly delightful about the way "The Usual Suspects" blends crime and intrigue together for a masterclass in screenwriting. It's seasoned, mature, goofy at times, and always full of quotable moments. The mug itself is sort of the linchpin in detective work that comes perhaps a bit too late.

The hat from "Breathless"

The king of hipsters himself, Jean-Luc Godard. This movie is by far his best work and Patricia Franchini's hat is simply the coolest. Technically both Jean-Paul Belmondo and Franchini wear this hat, but it looks way cooler on Franchini. The tale of romance, intrigue, lies, and life itself (well, maybe not), "Breathless" would be incomplete without its style. The hat serves as the best reminder of that.

The gloves from "Funny Games"

"Funny Games" is a viewing experience unlike anything else. It's brutal, playful, teasing, and infuriating. This is probably why the white gloves that both the young men wear are so curiously out of place, and yet perfect. Donning all white, that is mostly unstained by the end of the movie, their gloves are just another layer of the genius costume design. This innocent and careless superiority is one of the reasons "Funny Games" smacks you in the face.

The makeshift gun from "No Country for Old Men"

Who wouldn't want a stunner of a gun? Okay, that was lame, but seriously. Anton Chigurh's makeshift death device is present from the very beginning of the movie and it helps to make his presence one of extreme terror. Every time his figure looms on the screen, you know something's about to happen, part of this is due to his relentless killings and this unique gun is perfect for his part.

The camera from "Memento"

Nothing sums up "Memento" better than the camera. For a movie about a man who cannot make new memories, the camera is the best example of a picture never saying a thousand words. Interpretations change, the meaning shifts, even as the photo develops before our protagonist's eyes. "Memento" may not be Christopher Nolan's flashiest movie, but it is certainly one of his most complex and his grittiest.

The pod from "Prometheus"

"Prometheus" I will defend to the death. Its complicated commentary on religion, origins, and faith is just flawless to me. The writing team and Ridley Scott try to one-up the chest-burster scene from "Alien" with the medical pod that, among other uses, provides and emergency C-section for the main character. It's beyond claustrophobic and almost epic in a way. This would be cool to have if you had the space for it and the willingness to hear from every other person why "Prometheus" is actually stupid. People, calm down. It's subjective...and also I'm right.

The beaver from"The Beaver"

This is a great example of a prop actually being a character. In Jodie Foster's "The Beaver", a puppet serves as the gateway between a man's depression and the lives of his family. Not only does the film manage to somehow give puppetry a serious place, it also manages to weave the oddities of its story together without feeling fake or insensitive.

There, I think I've exhausted my immediate thoughts. Of course, given years these would change and I'm sure I would like to include props from "Laurence of Arabia" and "Casablanca" or even "La Dolce Vita", but I can't think of any that stand out to me at this moment. So there you have it, those are the props I'd like to have. Thanks to Invaluable for this entertaining question which I'll leave all of you with. What movie props would you like to have?

If you're interested in Invaluable's collection of movie props, say no more and simply click here.

Friday, July 31, 2015

I don't know what it was exactly that made me stumble onto "I Killed My Mother". I think a large factor is Xavier Dolan's babe-ness. Either way, I was unsure of what to expect from the Canadian indie film and what I got was far beyond most viewing experiences.

At the time I first watched the movie, almost a year ago, I was still in the closet, still stifled under self-inflicted rigors of what coming out would feel like, and still terrified daily of what my parents would think. I've always had a close relationship with my mother that seemed dependent on the closet. If you want to preserve integrity, keep your mouth shut. This is probably why "I Killed My Mother" hit me—and still hits me—like someone punching me in the stomach, squeezing my heart like a tube of toothpaste.

The lead, an attractive boy named Hubert (naturally played by Dolan), is in the throws of teenage angst under the pressure of a mother who couldn't care less. Their relationship is volatile to say the least. The very first scene views Hubert glaring his mother down because he is disgusted at the way she eats. The next scene has her driving her son to school, they get into what becomes a typical fight. Insults are thrown, he accuses her of having Alzheimer's, and she lets him off on the side of the road so she can get to work on time.

Hubert is a brooding hero, he likes to shout his mind, or write it down and let it burn on the pages. We often see him shouting "I hate you" to his mother, only to be replaced by "I love you" in the subsequent scenes. This back and forth of extreme emotions make "I Killed My Mother" entertaining if nothing else; but it also lends a style of restrictiveness and openness. We get the sense that neither Hubert nor his mother (Anne Dorval) can accurately say exactly what they want to each other. Their peculiarities only make the situation worse.

Hubert occupies a comfortable space with his sexuality, an undisclosed, nonchalant area where he and his boyfriend Antonin (François Arnaud) are able to be romantic and intimate. Antonin's mother, Hélène (Patricia Tulasne) is then seen as the mother Hubert would like to have.The last piece of the puzzle is the stereotypical teacher with a heart of gold, Julie Cloutier (the effortlessly lovely Suzanne Clément). She takes a liking to Hubert and often is the sole voice of praise and support in his life, when his mother cannot manage to say the words. Julie's is a love that Hubert gravitates to because it is based on actions, words that people say and gifts they give.As Hubert struggles under the strain of his mother and she finds that she cannot understand her teenage son and his mood swings, the movie reaches a climax by never letting us truly know what the end result might be...and no, it's not as dark as its title implies.

I think the thing that hits me so hard about the movie is the unspoken (for the most part) extreme love that Hubert and his mother have for each other. You can't tell this by the way that they scream at each other in the car or the way that his mother threatens, and often carries through on her threats, to leave Hubert and drive away because he's taking too long at whatever. But their love is so intense that when their facades finally crumble (cleverly never at the same time) we see them speak to each other and finally admit their feelings. When Hubert, high on speed, comes home and wakes his mother up in the middle of the night, he says that if he had time to say everything he wanted to say to his mother, it would take him 100 years.The moment that breaks my heart is when Hubert is being sent away to boarding school. He tells his mother that the moment he turns 18, he will never speak to her again and that he hates her. This isn't the first time that he's said such things; but we get the feeling that for once the words are really hitting home with Chantale (his mom's name, though rarely used in the film). Eventually he screams at her "What would you do if I died today?" and then stalks off to the bus, taking him off to a boarding school he really does not want to go to. What he doesn't hear is her response, which she whispers at his back with no overblown sentimentality: "I'd die tomorrow".
Hubert's sexuality is not known to his mother, not because he is afraid of her response, and yet maybe it is. She learns from Antonin's mother about their sons' relationship, which is possibly the most #lifegoals gay relationship I've seen in a movie. Chantale is shocked by this and is seen walking in a stupor for a few minutes afterwards, not upset, yet obviously perplexed by it all. She later confronts Hubert about this and says that what hurt her the most is that he didn't say anything to her.

Communication is not good between the two even for all the talking they do. Yet what child really has a good two-way channel opened to his mother? I know that as close as I was to my mother, I never shared everything with her, though certainly we were never as violent or as mean as Hubert and Chantale.

I think that's why the movie hits me so hard, because of sons and mothers, because we see Hubert and his mother fall out, come back together, scream, break, shout, cry, and embrace.

In the review I did, when I first saw "I Killed My Mother", somehow I managed to compare Dolan to Woody Allen which I think is somehow still accurate but a rather naive comparison. I don't think Dolan deserves to be compared to someone else, not because he is that much different from other directors or terribly original, but because he holds such a special place in my mind. The intimacy of his work, seen best probably in "Laurence Anyways" is mixed with highs of emotion—"Mommy"—but I think "I Killed My Mother" will always be the one that I return to.Dolan has gone on to make better looking films with higher budgets, yet his debut remains so potent. The French (which I don't speak) is gloriously beautiful. The acting is superb. I can't find faults with the movie, mainly because it severs heartstrings with its cinematic knife.To my mother, who I don't think will ever read this because I don't think she knows it exists: Je t'aime. We've never seen eye to eye on everything and I know that you'll never watch this movie because you don't like subtitles; but I think all the right emotions are there that somehow mirror our relationship.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Well hello there, it's been a while hasn't it? Well, the reason for my absence is that not only is my schedule slammed; but apparently I had to watch "Six Feet Under" to gain a better understanding on life, which I think is preposterous. Time and time again the show popped up on "best of" lists and I decided to give it a shot. After the first season, being unimpressed, I only heard rave things about the finale, so I stuck it out another four seasons and voila! Today I finished! I could cry from happiness.

In order to better serve my arrogant whims, I have decided to make a detailed description on my reactions to the series as a whole and thus will be SPOILING every last facet of the show which means that if you're read past *this*, you're probably going to get angry if you wanted it all to be a surprise...then again, you're just doing it to yourself at this point.

"Six Feet Under" concerns a family of undertakers and their dealings with life and death. Yes, it's kind of easy to shrug off the entire show and its complexities as such; but then again with such an ambitious goal, it can seem that I can do nothing better than just shrug it off. It's nonsense.

I made the running joke while I was watching the show about retitling it "Assholes Who Cry All the Time" or "Getting Bad News on a Phone Call" or even "People Who Cheat on People and then Get Angry When They're Cheated On"; but I actually think the best retitling the show could undergo is "The Dysfunctional Red Headed Stepchildren" because by all means that's what's going on here.

Now before I go any further, I should give the show its dues; it's trying to be realism. It's trying to show that life is a bitch; but it can also be painfully beautiful. Just flashback to the moment in "American Beauty" when Jane and Ricky and watching a plastic bag float around on the screen. That is beauty. That is powerful; but Alan Ball seems to have stretched himself to his limits because he attempts to inject that beauty in everyday life into a barrage of unsightly characters who always make the worst decisions, have the worst things happen to them, and deal with each other in the worst possible ways.

A brainchild of Ball's, "Six Feet Under" was a critical success on its release and has never let up since. It remains one of the most loved shows of all times and consistently ranks in with the best of the best and all I can do is just be all like...."but why?"

Here, I've complied a list of what I thought were the show's most heinous faults as well as trying to give credit where deserved.

The Gays

"Six Feet Under" was one of the first places on television you could spot a gay couple, and they weren't just gay, they were biracial which is a plus for diversity. Still, the arc of the couple plows through betrayal after betrayal and their relationship is seen in a constant state of contention. They fight, physically sometimes and often envelop other people into bizarre menage a trois and the viewer is still supposed to care for them. They are stripped of their humanity time after time as they scream and fight with each other, having anonymous sex in bathrooms and sometimes even going beyond their orientation for a nice screw. Sex is used as a weapon, as a deal-breaker, as a casual state of affairs. In the last seasons they are seen becoming even more casual with the idea of each other getting blowjobs from strange men and seeking retributions through orgasms. It's almost revolting what happens.

But there is a moment when it seems to take a breath. When David (Michael C. Hall) tells Keith (Matthew St. Patrick) that he wants to become monogamous and the very next scene has David screwing a man in bed while Keith is away on a job. Ah, romance.

Not only do they cheat and does the show deny them their nuances, the show makes sure that plenty of trauma goes around for everyone (I've warned before, but I'll warn again MAJOR SPOILERS!). One long story arc has David picking up a hitchhiker who steals the car and mentally tortures David before letting him go. The ghost of the hitchhiker follows David the rest of the show, even to the point where it becomes ridiculous. After Nate dies in the final episodes of the show, David can't cope with the death of his brother because he keeps hallucinating the man wearing a red hoody trying to sneak up and kill him. It's only a confrontation in a dream that allows David to have release and after a season and a half of build up, it's actually not that rewarding that it can all be solved with a hug. That's just insulting.

While it is nice to have gay representation in the show, it's almost like the writing is too committed to portraying these people as flawed that it doesn't bother to give them any redeeming qualities. David and Keith eventually adopt children and the two kids they end up with have a troubled past. Although we see one of them pull a knife of Keith it's only a few sweet episodes later that he's speaking kindly and "yes ma'am-ing". That kind of character development doesn't happen overnight.

The Torture

In the show's first season, it seemed like it was David's show. After all, a complex, troubled, emotionally unstable gay man? That's drama, right? Well, I guess not because after that the show shifted to Nate (Peter Krause) and he became the shining star of the piece ever since...which is really annoying. His story arc is nothing is not absolutely twisted and vile.

On the day that his father is killed, Nate hooks us with Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) and then starts the whirlwind of their relationship. They start seriously dating but Brenda randomly turns into a nymphomaniac and a drug addict and after one too many handjobs to strange men, she leaves to find herself while Nate is left behind with a brain condition that means it could be his time to go any moment.

In walks Lisa, the walking plot twist. Played by overly cheerful Lili Taylor, this girl is from Nate's past and she is pregnant with his child. Oops. Well, I guess while Brenda is off finding herself, Nate marries Lisa and they start having sex problems. Lovely.

But Brenda has to show back up and naturally the show does the only logical thing it can do: kills Lisa. After Nate reels from the death—and he does so for a good seasons if not two—he starts casually having sex with Brenda again while she's in the best relationship of her life. She was dating this adorable French horn player and he was into kinky sex, but their relationship was so healthy and they were going to have kids together. In walks Nate—who by this time in the show has been degraded to a crying mess of emotions—and you can say bye-bye to French horn, dude; because Nate is so much more attractive as a mentally unstable character dealing with the loss of his first wife. Wow, hot.

Brenda and Nate get married and want to have a child and this is where it gets really fucked up. Nate meets his step-father's daughter (it's complicated) and the glances from each other indicate that this is going to go somewhere. So while Brenda is cooped up, pregnant with his child, he's out screwing a Quaker.

This isn't even the coup de gras, the best moment comes when Nate finds out that Lisa has cheated on him with her brother-in-law. When he confronts the man about it, the cheater blows his head off right in front of Nate...the very next scene has Nate going home and telling Brenda that they should start a family together and get married.

Pardon me but what. the. fuck? Mind you he's still covered with his brother-in-law's blood!!!!!! Can you explain to me why it is acceptable to put a character through this much torture just to get some sort of sick, "life is hard" altruistic nonsense out of it. It is insultingly bad.

Nate isn't the only character whose narrative arc is far from satisfying or pleasant. Ruth (Frances Conroy) is another abused character. It's her husband's death that starts the show rolling and she never really recovers completely from the loss. Although she bounces from partner to partner, eventually she becomes a catatonic mess and shuts down completely, only finding comfort in the fact that Nate was happy after screwing his step-sister right before blood hemorrhaged into his brain.

Ruth has a bizarre stream of lovers from Russian mafia florists to hairdressers to George (James Cromwell). She meets George when she cries into his chest for no apparent reason—none that I can remember anyway—and then the two fall in love. George is a little anal about a few things and he has quite a past. Ruth gets pushed into hysterics time and time again because she wants to know all of his secrets. Then one day, the writers decided that George should go crazy. That's right. Crazy. He loses his mind and builds a Y2K-like bomb shelter and stocks up on everything, haunted by the ghost of his mother who overdosed while holding his hand. Geez! Does anyone in this show not have an entirely screwed-up backstory? Anyway, George is treated with electro shock therapy and Ruth turns into an angry bitch while caring for him, eventually separating from him and turning into a mess upon the death of Nate.

She is often seen clutching her chest, sitting catatonically, or proclaiming that she wished she was dead. No actor she be put through what she was.

This isn't a show like "The Killing", which I greatly enjoyed, that revels in the depressive state of its characters. No, this show is cruel for 'life's sake' whatever that might be. It is so mean and so bitter, that the only reaction I feel appropriate is a sad shaking of the head.

The Sex/The Comedy

It might be a shocker to you, but "Six Feet Under" is supposed to be funny. Not ironically funny; but genuinely funny, like sit-com funny but without all the laugh tracks. It's not even comically (in the most traditional definition) funny—that is, ending with a wedding and for this we look at Brenda.

This character's arc goes as follows: she hooks up with Nate at an airport and then sticks around for emotional support, i.e. because she has a vagina. Nate uses Brenda like a refueling station for whenever he's feeling depleted and this isn't even the worst of it. As Brenda comes into her own as a character, the writers have her become a sex addict and she fools around and then disappears, showing up after the death of Lisa.

Once married to Nate, things go downhill fast because Nate isn't interested in her anymore and goes off with his step-sister. I'm not exactly sure what about this is funny or maybe it's just too hyperbolic...so that makes it funny. As stated before, these characters suffer such traumas time after time that I begin to wonder what was so funny about the show. I think that I only laughed twice through five seasons, this does not constitute as a comedy.

Yet the comedy is not alone in the "light-hearted" approach, because sex is treated with lack of care as well and here I have to re-title the series "Assholes Who Cheat". There is not one main character, besides Claire (who rarely has a committed relationship) that does not sleep with someone else. Brenda, Nate, Ruth, Nate again, Brenda again, Rico, Brenda's parents, Nate again, David, Keith, etc. Sex is so casual and the tropes of the show are so established that you can literally predict who is going to sleep with who. All it takes is a longer shot of a sexually viable character and voila three episodes later, they're making hanky panky. Not exactly subtle. This treatment of sex is so frustrating because it is so inconsistent. Half of the time it's uncaring—for example David telling Keith that a plumber blew him—and the other time it's exaggerated—Claire breaks up with Russell because he cheats on her and it sends her into a downward spiral. Sex is a normal part of life and maybe I'm naive but I don't think that cheating is, particularly if you've made it clear that that is not what you want from a relationship. "Six Feet Under" does not agree with me because everyone cheats.

The noises of sex are another problem...also I don't think Peter Krause has a good kissing face. Let me explain: we hear a lot of macking in the series, like a lot, wet, wet, wet kisses. It's not that I don't like a good peck once in a while, but I don't think I need a ratio for spit exchange. Whatever, that's just an artistic difference. Peter Krause's face is another issue. He always looks so awkward when he's kissing...oh well.

The Crying

Buckets! Literal buckets of tears in "Six Feet Under". So much crying that it doesn't even make sense anymore and the worst offended here is Ruth; but Claire (Lauren Ambrose) is a close-runner up only because she's the worst actress in the show. She can't make herself cry so she cringes a lot and turns red and thrashes around in "agony"...it's not convincing in the least.

This just goes back to the thought of suffered trauma, because all the family has gotten screwed, ergo, they all must cry. And cry they do.

The Death/The Hallucinations

One of the motifs of "Six Feet Under" was the way it treated death with ghosts. Often times when David or Rico (Freddy Rodríguez) was working on a cadaver, the deceased would appear to them and talk to them, usually about some pithy truth of life; but that wasn't always the case. In the later episodes, the hallucinations began to encompass always darker things like Rico's stripper friend, Infinity, who he had an affair with. He sees her, as Jesus Christ, bleeding from her breast implants while his wife and this stripper start to undress him. That's a lovely scene right?

Death is just part of the territory. I mean, we're talking about a show about undertakers, it's bound to be a lot of death. The way that the idea of death is treated could have been great. In an early episode, Life and Death are personified for Nate and he sees them having sex. It's actually a wonderful scene about how the two are inseparable; but the show just left that behind and decided it would be best to torture these characters for another three and a half seasons.

The Final Season

Finally, this is where I've wanted to go. The last season is supposed to be the best, and it's far from it. The nuances of the fourth season implied that this might be the ending we all needed; but it wasn't...and shit got cray-cray again.

I think the best way to explain the melodrama is with the description of Nate's fortieth birthday party. It's a surprise party and he blurts out that Brenda is pregnant when he should have, even though she just had a miscarriage. Anyway, a bird flies into the house, a mysterious and beautiful blue bird. The guests stare at it perplexed and decide that it can find its own way out.

Then it gets real. Ruth starts screaming at Claire, Brenda and Nate have a spectacular fight. Claire and her boyfriend break up and the bird is still in the house. Everyone gets drunk, Claire sleeps with a forty year-old man and Nate goes crazy. He takes a broom and screams at everyone, telling his pregnant wife to "fuck off" and then attacks this bird, whatever symbolism it had, now destroyed.

Then the episode ends with him placing a garbage bag over the bird's corpse in the trash can looking straight into the camera and the viewer and saying smugly, "sorry".

That wasn't nearly enough of an apology.

The Rest...

The finale of the show is good, I can't deny that. It's quite an episode and very emotional. Is it as good as everyone says it is? Not nearly; but it is good. That doesn't make up for the injustices that the show committed.

If you liked "Six Feet Under"...I'm happy for you, because I feel like I just wasted years of my life to a show that was unequivocally cruel to all its characters and writing this blog post isn't nearly enough to save my sense of lost time.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll be able to witness the glories of The Oscars this years. #bummer.
But that doesn't mean I can't participate in spirit...without (or with, whatever floats your boat) ado, here are my Oscar predictions with some needless opinions thrown in there for good measure.

There's nothing wrong with Linklater's "Boyhood", it's a fantastic movie and one that really hits you in all the right soft spots; but Wes Anderson's film is nothing if not flawless. The competition here will be from "Birdman" which looks highly likely to knock "Boyhood" from its awards throne; but I don't think that will happen.

Best Director:
Prediction: Richard Linklater
Preference: Wes Anderson

Anderson deserves this one not just for his body of work, but for a stellar job in directing. I think Iñárritu might win, since he just won the DGA but the whole "12 Years in the Making" thing I think will propel Linklater to a deserved gold.

Best Actor:
Prediction: Eddie Redmayne
Preference: Eddie Redmayne

Not to pull a total hipster move, but I liked this dude before the Academy. Redmayne's performance was the central part of "The Theory of Everything" and it will earn him his dues.

Best Actress:
Prediction: Julianne Moore
Preference: Rosamund Pike

I should clarify something here, I haven't seen "Still Alice" but I hear that Moore is tremendous in it, so I don't begrudge her the Oscar because she is a sensationally talented woman. Pike's performance was excellent so it's the only thing I could prefer, since it's the one I've seen.

I'm not really invested in this. Some think that it will go to "Whiplash"; but I couldn't really say. The Academy loves the Weinstein Company and a gay rights movie mixed with wartime sentiments and period costumes and British actors...seems like a good bet.

I always like to include this one. Lubezski has been such a favorite of mine for his work with Malick and it's so good to see him finally getting rightfully honored. Back-to-back wins for "Gravity" and now "Birdman".

There you have it, I feel more confident than last year, particularly with the acting categories; but we'll see.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Who knew that the year after "12 Years a Slave" won Best Picture would raise so many issues with racial diversity in Hollywood? Oh, that's right. It's Hollywood. Nevermind. Lol.

I'm just going to jump right in here and point out that this year more than the rest, there have been a load of mistakes and these are the most memorable mentions:

Best Picture:
"Foxcatcher"
"Pride"

With no apparent reason for why the Oscars have only eight nominated films this year, the biggest omission is Bennet Miller's "Foxcatcher" which garnered many other nominations, including Best Director...the two categories hardly ever deviating. "Pride" felt like it could have possibly snuck in there, but with no nominations whatsoever, this LGBT banner-flying British film is left out in the cold.

Best Actor:
Ralph Fiennes for "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
David Oyelowo for "Selma"
Jake Gyllenhaal for "Nightcrawler"
Timothy Spall for "Mr. Turner"

I think the most surprising is Oyelowo here because The Academy loves a good biopic and a good imitation and as Martin Luther King, Jr, Oyelowo is as close to perfect as you'll come. Spall won the Cannes Best Actor award and yet got forgotten completely. Fiennes was so much fun and Gyllenhaal's embodied performance seemed clear to garner nominations. I guess not. If it were up to me Steve Carell, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Bradley Cooper would be outta here.

Best Actress:
Charlotte Gainsbourg for "NYMPH( )MANIAC"
Scarlett Johansson for "Under the Skin"

I can't believe Scar-Jo isn't getting more love. "Under the Skin" was a perfect movie for her.

Best Director:
Ava DuVernay for "Selma"

Kick Miller out of there and bring Ava DuVernay in. It seemed like a no-brainer, given that she would have been the first black woman nominated for the category...I guess not.

Best Animated Feature:
"The Lego Movie"

One of the biggest disappointments was the lack of our favorite animated movie getting left out completely of this category. Only nominated for "Best Original Song". Boo!